Lou Reed's complete personal archive to go on display at the New York Public Library

An entire collection of Lou Reed's personal archive will be going on display in New York City throughout the month of March.

Julian Schnabel

Yesterday, March 2, on what would have been the late Lou Reed’s 75th birthday, his widow Laurie Anderson announced that his complete personal archive made up of personal correspondence, photos, audio demos, video tapes, record collection and more will be going on display for fans to see at the New York Public Library throughout the rest of the month.

The collection, which according to The New Yorkerincludes around 300 linear feet of paper records, electronic records and photographs, 3,600 audio recordings and 1,300 video recordings will go on display in waves. All the materials from his personal collection will be on display at the library’s main building on Fifth Avenue in New York City as well as at Lincoln Center.

On March 13, the library will host a live performance of Reed’s 2003 concept album, The Raven, as well as a presentation of Reed's guitar and amp feedback installation, Drones at the Fifth Avenue location a few days later on March 15th.

Anderson, along with the collection’s archivist Don Fleming, talked about what the initial discovery of collection was like for them both, as well as what it will mean for fans who want a little more insight into the iconic artist's personal life.

"There’s an extremely well-detailed history of his life as a performer in this collection,” Fleming told The New Yorker. “I mean, all of the studio work is in there, too. But the depth of the paperwork on the touring is amazing.”

Flemming would go on to explain about how he was surprised of how much stuff the veteran musician had collected and kept over the years.

“I was surprised at how much stuff he kept. Like, there’s 600 hours of audio that no one’s heard yet. There’s a lot of Velvet Underground material in the collection that he got after the Velvet Underground broke up. Like bootlegs. He wanted to have copies of those.”

Anderson also spoke withRolling Stone about how her late husband was just cut from a different cloth than today’s artists, saying “He wasn't afraid. He wasn't trying to please anybody. There just isn't anybody like that now. We're all kind of going, 'Well, was that alright for you?' He didn't care. He had that need to just keep doing what he believed in. You feel that come across in the archive."

For a complete schedule and info of the collection celebrating the life of Lou Reed, click here.

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